Lasse Lau

I just arrived on buisness this Sunday from Copenhagen via Düsseldorf in New York and are missing my entire luggage! The numbers that are given for the airport luggage handling is not working. The costumer service is rude and hangs up on you. There is no number you can call about this matter! I have never traveled with such a poor airline before. Service is a word that has never existed in their vocabular. I hope somebody responsibly is listening !

danger

Ironic.

I arrived in Berlin a few hours ago and I'm also without my luggage. As it's Christmas Eve there's nothing open to buy essentials. Instead of enjoying the beautiful markets on Christmas Day I'll be paying for expensive in-house movies at my hotel.

ffay005

While I try to avoid checking in luggage if at all possible, and while I do understand how annoying it must be to arrive without your bag, I still get the feeling you are exaggerating this a bit. What prevents you from leaving your hotel room tomorrow? After all, you hardly travelled naked.

330

If your Luggage is in TXL, you'll have to wait about 6 weeks on average in order to retrieve your luggage.

danger

Adequate clothing. I arrived from Australia where the temperature was above 30 degrees; here it's 10 at best. I have a pair of jeans and a shirt plus an additional pair of underwear. No jacket, no scarf, no beanie and no gloves (although the very kind concierge team at the Grand Hyatt has loaned me a porter's jacket). I've been wearing the same (outer) clothes for three days. They need to be laundered at which point I don't feel comfortable leaving the hotel in just a bathrobe. The shoes I'm wearing are brand new and are giving me blisters (the idea was to wear them through airports only, to break them in, before changing into an older pair from my luggage for the heavy walking around the city).

One might counter that I should have put a jacket in my carry-on. I carry my camera in that along with an essential pack of basic toiletries I might need in flight. Throw in a book and room to hold onto the EY pyjamas (I flew with them to AUH) and I'm pretty much at my weight limit. My personal item, a shoulder bag, holds my laptop, iPad, headphones and travel wallet.

Equally a big problem - which of course is not airberlin's doing - is that there are no shops open until 27 December and not, apparently, until midday. At the absolute latest I must leave my hotel at 2.50pm to catch my next flight to Tallinn.

May I enquire as to why you say that? A bag is supposed to be declared lost after 21 days.

And very frustratingly, the bag's location is unknown. I'll feel at lot more confident if they said 'It's in AUH and just wasn't loaded'. But no, nothing.

Finally, what sort of airline doesn't have its own staff at its home airport?

ZKOKA

Whenever my bag went missing at TXL I got it back within 1-3 days.

danger, there are some clothing outlets at Berlin Hauptbahnhof, which should be open every day including national holidays. On Tuesday, all shops will be open during their normal business hours, which is usually after 10 am. If all fails, there is a decent shopping mall ("Ülemiste keskus") right next to Tallinn Airport, open every day until 9PM.

airberlin recently got rid of their own handling staff for ticketing and baggage issues and ahs are not doing a very good job at what airberlin used to do.

danger

Thank you kindly for your advice.

I did go to Hauptbahnhof as suggested and I was able to get essential items at the pharmacy and Rossman. I saw a clothing shop open but I was more interested at this point in getting the essentials for hygiene (toothbrush and paste, floss, deodorant etc.).

I've just returned to the Grand Hyatt where WorldTracer is now showing "Delivery process initiated" whereas previously it was showing "Tracing continues. Please check back later". That's got to be positive. I run out of prescription medication tonight and will require more tomorrow. The hotel can arrange a doctor but that and the medication will obviously require a significant cost. I'm crossing my fingers that this WorldTracer information is positive news.

To backtrack slightly I've found airberlin to be ridiculously unhelpful. After reporting the bag missing to their TXL ground agent, Wisag, after my flight I called AB's US number (it's the only one I have saved in Skype and I figure it would save me navigating a German menu) about six hours ago. Their agents informed me that in the first five days of a lost bag it is the responsibility of the lost and found department at the airport concerned, in this case TXL. This sounds ludicrous to me as it suggests AB automatically assumes a bag is lost as the airport it was supposed to be delivered to, rather than, potentially, somewhere en route. The agent gave me the number for TXL's lost and found department. What a disaster. Their recorded announcement says that lost luggage is the responsibility of the airline and there is no option to speak to a living person. So I phoned AB back and told them this. The (same) agent again referred me - a further three times no less - to that number despite my protests that I get nowhere doing so. She eventually disconnected me. (The upside was I had elected at the start of the call to partake in a survey so that agent got one stars across the board.) I called back and got another agent with much the same results but she was at least willing to annotate my PNR to say that she had advised me to go and purchase essentials and that they would be reimbursed. Given other information on this forum about ABs (Id use grammar here but Im using a German keyboard and somewhere I cant get it to work how it was two minutes ago) staunch reluctance in paying out on EU261 or whatever its called claims then Im not overally hopeful.

After getting off the call to her I phoned Wisag, the ground agent. That agent was a world apart from the AB fools. She was able to advise that the bag had been traced to AUH (WorldTracer did not indicate this) (and it makes a mockery of AB's insistence that for the five days it's the local airport's responsibility to look) and that her system indicated it would be delivered on the same flight I was on yesterday, today. She advised me to call back at 5pm (four hours after its scheduled arrival) to confirm. She stressed that she could not confirm that it would be sent on that flight, only that that was what was planned. She added that her system indicated it was supposed to be forwarded yesterday but that did not occur so cautioned me against, essentially, getting my hopes up. But regardless, she had far more information than the handballing experts at AB (and was far more willing to assist) who would only refer me to the lost and found at TXL - which refers you to the operating airline! Even if my bag does not arrive in the next few hours I give the Wisag agent points for providing much more helpful information (even with the caveat) and showing at least a modicum of interest.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the measure of any airline (or any big business, for that matter) is how it treats its passengers in times of IRROPS. Airberlin fails, miserably.

Thanks again for the advice. I'll update when I know more.

Yoshi212

From the OP's other thread it seems OP has a flare for the dramatic. While it surely does suck to have luggage delayed/lost it seems you're basing this on one experience.
Have you received your luggage as it's now been a week? How long did it take? Did they cover your expenses?

danger

I returned to my hotel last night and my bag had been delivered. A big relief. Now the process of getting reimbursed by AB for essentials.

Concerto

Phew, that's great. You were getting me worried, for I have a major Berlin transfer coming up and there just seems to be endless stories about lost luggage there.

ffay005

Glad it worked out for you in the end. Next time, make sure to have all your medication in your hand luggage as that's the single most important thing that you need on your trip. Plus a set of clothes to suit the climate of the destination, of course.

On a return flight back home from a long trip, I once accidentally forgot my home keys in the bag that I checked in. I realised it mid-flight, which made the rest of the flight a tense experience. Fortunately, my bag made it that time.

danger

Thank you.

I carry a three day supply in my carry-on but as I'd had two overnight flights to get here I wasn't left with much. Going forward I think the medication will indeed need to be part of the carry-on.

danger

Airberlin denied my claim for essentials:
I'd appreciate people's thoughts.

Yoshi212

What was the total delayed time for your baggage?

danger

My flight arrived at 1pm on Christmas Eve and was delivered to my hotel just prior to 8pm on 25 December.